WhatsApp quietly keeps on adding interesting new features to its immensely popular messaging service. A recent one is backups to Google Drive. A feature that many WhatsApp users didn’t even know they wanted.
Currently available only on Android, this is quite a useful feature that you otherwise might not find very useful in day to day use. But in case you happen to lose your phone, or your data gets accidentally wiped, you will be glad that you turned this feature on. Also it makes switching WhatsApp content from an old phone to a new one less painful.
How to get access
WhatsApp says to have started rolling out the updated version of the app to Android users, but if you can't wait for it to come to you via an automatic update, you can download the APK file from the WhatsApp website and install it on your phone.
(You might have to change some security settings while doing so. Remember to reset the security setting (preventing non-Google Play installs) back to what it was after you are done installing.)
The backup feature was first spotted in version 2.12.306 of the app, which until last week was only available on the company's website - at a time when the version on the Play Store was 2.12.304. Since then the company has been upgrading the app - with the latest version available on its site and a relatively older one on the Google Play Store.
Currently, the Play Store has version 2.12.317 of the app available for users, which doesn’t include the Google Drive backup feature, while the APK file available on the company’s website is version 2.12.323, which supports the new backup feature.
So, if you can’t wait to get access to the new backup feature, you can go to WhatsApp’s official website, and download the latest APK file i.e., version 2.12.323 and install it on your phone.
How to use it more effectively
Post install, the new version prompts users to sync the app with a Google account to which the data could be backed up to. With the new version of the app, you will see the "Back up chats" option under Settings changed to "Chat backup".
While tapping on the "Back up chats" option in the old version simply takes a backup of your WhatsApp data and stores it locally on your phone, the "Chat backup" option in new version takes users to a new screen to help them create a private backup of their chat history, voice messages, photos, and videos on Google Drive.
The following tips could help you customise your Google Drive (backup) settings for a hassle free experience.
1. The "Back up to Google Drive" under "Chat backup" allows users to select the frequency of the auto backups - daily, weekly, monthly, or never. We suggest you to set it to "Daily" so you have a backup of your data saved in your Google Drive every day - without fear of any data loss. But if you don't have access to WiFi everyday, you can keep it to weekly as the backup consumes a decent amount of data which is otherwise limited on your mobile data plan.
2. You might even want to create a new Google email address for backing up your WhatsApp data, instead of syncing it with your existing Google account. The huge WhatsApp data (depending on how much you use it), therefore, will not eat into the otherwise limited storage space on your existing Google account.
3. Before making the WhatsApp switch to a new phone, remember to do this one thing. In your old phone, tap on the "Chat backup" before actually setting up the WhatsApp app on your new phone. This is because, the app, even if the backup is set to daily, backs up the data at 3 AM in the morning - and not in real time. Therefore, you are advised to manually tap the "Chat backup" to have a backup of all of your data till that time in Google Drive and will prevent any inadvertent data loss.
Why Google Drive backup?
While WhatsApp has been taking local backups of your data ever since it was introduced, the option to have a backup on cloud is what we see as a boon to its users. Following are the most obvious advantages.
1. No data loss: A lot of data is exchanged everyday over WhatsApp. While the app takes backup of your data on your phone, you may lose it completely, if the phone gets stolen, lost, or damaged. But with a backup on cloud, you will have it with you even if your phone conks off or is lost. The data can then be easily brought to your new phone by syncing it with the Google account.
2. Hassle free experience: Moving the WhatsApp data from your old phone to a new phone is not quite simple. It involves a few steps and requires manual transfer of files. But with the data stored in Google Drive, it's no more a hassle to bring all of your data to your new phone.
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